La Chasse #1

It is early morning and I hear clack, clack, clack, a wooden sound that makes me think of the quack of a duck. A body memory warns me away, reminding me of duck shooting season at Waimatai, the farm of my adolescence. That sound a lure to less intelligent prey.

There is no lake here.

I take a different path, away from that unnatural, menacing sound, two black labradors at my heels. This forested hillside of the south Luberon is a refuge to the sanglier, the wild pig.

Too late, I discover I have taken the chosen route, they begin to arrive, stirring up dust in their four wheel drive vehicles, les chasseurs, the hunters.

Militant vehicles with dark windows, at least two dogs in kennels on the back, they pass us by, one after the other, bright orange vests and woolen hats visible through the open window. There are so many of them; it takes all my strength to hold back the young labrador Winnie, who senses the excitement of the upcoming chase.

We turn around and head back to safety just as an eighth vehicle passes by with a dozen hounds yapping behind the grill.

La Chasse #2

Safe inside the stone dwelling, the dogs fed, I tell my friend about the hunters we encountered on the track.

“We won’t be walking up to the chapel this visit,” I say when I return. “We are surrounded.”

One hunter in a small white car, an older man, had stopped in front of me and I had asked him if they were hunting the sanglier. I had seen a number of traces in the soft clay beside the track, telltale footprints and the persistent interest of the two dogs, sniffing the area intensely in certain places.

“Yes, we will be up in that area on the left,” he had indicated with his arm. 

Left. The route to the hermitage, the lone chapel we had hoped to walk to later on, the area directly behind the house where we were staying for the weekend, looking after Spike and Winnie.

As we plan a different walking route, both labradors begin barking and whining. Winnie the younger dog I have been instructed to keep on a leash at all times, has her GPS tracker charging. I reach for her leash, deciding in that moment that I will keep it on her indoors, just in case. I reach for the kitchen door to secure it at the same moment that my friend is coming in from outside, carrying a jar of tapenade on a wooden board. Winnie pushes past me through the barely open door, brushing my friend aside with a force that sends the olive green tapenade flying, the glass jar smashing on the terrace. Winnie can’t be stopped, though I call and shout her name running across the lawn after her.

I watch her reach the end of the lawn and sail through the air over the top of the electric fence that has been put there to prevent the sangliers from digging up the garden beneath the oak trees. The sound of barking is close by, a frantic, feverish tone. Winnie tears up through the pines beyond the house. I continue calling, I can see the terrain she is mounting is steep and unwieldy.

I try not to think about her encountering those hounds off-leash, or the other black animal that is being hunted, of this naive young labrador moving into the line of fire, of my friends who have entrusted her into our care, of the GPS tracker still charging.

My friend walks to the end of the lawn with the lead in hand. “What are we going to do?” they ask.

“There’s nothing we can do but call her. We can’t go after her.”

“And get shot,” my friend adds.

I take a couple of steps forward to the edge of the lawn, despondent. “Winnie!” I call.

She comes bounding down through the trees towards us.

Click. Leash secure. Saved. This time.